


early in the morning

by Anonymous



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, OT3, Treasure Island Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9881723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "He still loved you.”“He shouldn’t have.” Flint says back. That’s it. Fate tried to give him a happy ending and he knew it was not for him, knew that the man Thomas looked at him and saw was long gone. He did not trust the sea to take him and decided to drown himself another way.(Written in reaction to speculation post-episode 4x04, reading Treasure Island, and sadness.)





	

When they find him he cannot stop laughing. Or maybe he’s singing? It is the pained sound of a wounded creature and it startles him to hear it coming out of his mouth but when he tries to jerk away from himself he ends up knocking his drink over and laughing harder. When they find him he’s five drinks in and can’t remember the name of the place. One of them takes his arm so hesitantly it’s like he thinks Flint will kill him for it, will rip his heart out of his chest and put it on the table in the pool of spilled rum and just keep laughing, but Flint stares at the hand on his arm and asks it where he is. 

“Where am I?” He asks, over and over, vaguely aware that even as they’re answering him they’re taking him somewhere else. The sunshine outside spikes his headache so suddenly that he pukes onto his own boots and then starts laughing again because they’re not his boots. Nothing he has is his. 

The men that have come for him won’t look directly at him, even as they’re tying his hands together. Flint watches them argue, follows them through piss-stained alleys as gentle as a lamb. He’s not sure what he trips on, only that he doesn’t even try to catch himself and as his head cracks against the ground and he blacks out he hears the familiar sound of sailors cursing and wonders for the first time where they’re taking him. 

 

He wakes up, hands still bound, in the Captain’s cabin of the Walrus. If it weren’t for the restraints he’d think the past three years were all a terrible dream, so he’s glad for them and doesn’t try to remove them yet. It’s dark out but there are candles lit on his old desk and by the window, he can see how disorganized and messy the space is. He can see a worn down wooden crutch in the corner. His head hurts. 

Flint rolls over to face the wall, something he never did on this bed when it was his because it puts his back to the door. What does he care, now? He closes his eyes, holds his bound hands up to his chest in a mockery of prayer, closes his eyes, and lets sleep claw him back under. 

 

It’s bright again when Flint wakes. He curses the sun, feeling sick to his stomach and at the same time thirsty for a drink of anything to make his awareness of this place fade away. This ship, he never wanted to see it again. The man he can hear scratching a pen to paper behind him, he’s sure never wanted to see him. The Walrus rocks and Flint vocalizes an ounce of the pain in his body, betraying himself this time. Long John Silver stands over him seconds later, holding a knife, and he doesn’t even wince. 

Silver’s voice is deep and low, familiar, painful. “I only sent them to check up on you, not kidnap you. They didn’t tell me what you did to spook them so badly, didn’t tell me why they left you trussed up here like a present.” He touches Flint’s wrist, lifting his hands far enough away from his chest that Silver can slice through the fabric binding. Flint lets his hands fall back against his chest and closes his eyes, waiting for the next blow, wanting it even.

“Captain?” Silver asks, concern coloring his tone. Flint opens his eyes and finds Silver reaching for him again, and jerks hard against the wall of the ship, saying, “Don’t. Don’t touch me.” in a voice he barely recognizes. Silver looks shocked, in the half-second before Flint closes his eyes again, his body aching, his throat scratching. 

Flint hears him step across the room and then come back. Hears him say, “Would you like some water?” 

Flint shakes his head once, a mistake which makes him immediately feel sick. He inches himself back down into a prone position, letting all of his limbs sink into the bed, and doesn’t respond. Silver puts the cup down on the floor beside him, goes and pulls the curtains closed, and then leaves without another word. He locks the door behind him and Flint goes back to sleep. 

 

The next time he wakes he rolls over and pukes mostly into a bucket that’s been placed beside the bed. Flint can’t quite stop shaking but he manages to pick up the cup of water and rinse his mouth with it. He spits that into the bucket too, and then stays sitting up because he thinks he might puke again, because he feels hollow inside. 

Silver walks into the room and locks it behind him, steps falling hard against the wood, face slightly murderous. 

“Who did you kill?” Flint asks, honestly curious, mind clouded and throat so sore it hurts to force the question out. 

“No one today.” Silver says, looking him over. “Yet.” 

Flint ignores that blatant threat and considers the empty cup in his hands. “Who did you almost kill?” 

“A messenger, man I sent last night to send word to my wife, who I discovered just leaving this morning.” Silver says, walking over and opening the window, taking the bucket and tipping its contents out of the room. He sets it back down below Flint and moves to take the cup, pausing just short of their fingers touching. Flint doesn’t move, doesn’t look up at him. He’s still trying to understand the word ‘wife’ coming out of Silver’s mouth. He’s too exhausted to say that Silver can touch him now, not even sure that he’d mean it if he said it. 

Silver sighs and brings the water pitcher to him instead, pouring it in. Some of it splashes on Flint’s hands and they shake the harder for it.

“Captain, you’re-” Silver starts, stops, stares as Flint lifts the cup to his mouth. It takes all his concentration. His arms shake harder as he lifts, sloshing almost half the water onto his legs and the bed and the floor. He manages to drink the rest. Wordlessly, Silver fills it again. Flint sips it slower this time, afraid he won’t keep it down. The third time he holds the cup out to Silver, lets their fingers brush when he takes it, fills it, and sets it down beside the bucket. 

“You’re not drinking rum ever again.” Silver swears. Flint meets his eyes for the first time in three years and knows he means it. 

He manages to stay conscious for longer this time, long enough to be angry and scared and embarrassed. Long enough to realize that this cannot be the Walrus. Silver ignores him, muttering to himself and writing and looking at charts. No one comes in the room, in fact the door has been locked all day and there hasn’t been a single knock. Either most of the crew are not on board, or Silver scared them into staying away. Flint isn’t sure which he prefers. 

“We’re anchored.” Silver says, as if reading his mind. It makes Flint shiver, tug the blanket around him, and toss back the cup of water like a shot. “When you’re keeping down food again we’ll depart.” 

For where? Flint wants to know. He doesn’t ask. Silver looks over at him and seems disappointed that he doesn’t ask. 

“I’m going to take care of you.” Silver says, voice full of the same air of promise as before, the same fire in his eyes like he’ll shoot the man that tries to stop him. Flint lays back down and turns to face the wall again, shaking apart. Perhaps he is beyond the reach of care. Perhaps Silver should give his body back to the sea. He says nothing. 

 

He eventually leaves the bed, but only to wander around the room and touch all the books in the shelf, only to look out the window at the sea and curse her for all the times she spit him back out when she could have swallowed him. Flint starts eating and stops shaking. He doesn’t ask Silver any questions; he has hundreds but he denies himself answers. It makes him feel better. 

Flint knows he looks terrible, pale and thin and none of his clothes fit and he isn’t even sure where his boots are so he paces the room in bare feet. His hair has grown back ragged, uneven, tangled. He’s tempted to find one of the knives he knows Silver must have hidden in here and cut it all off, but every time he thinks of it he loses all his energy and has to go sit down again. Silver, in contrast, looks every inch a pirate king. He is standing taller, his coat is soft and swirls around his legs and his beard suits him well. He uses the crutch more and his arms have muscles they never had before. He still has that freckle under his left eye. Flint watches him and doesn’t care if he sees. Silver might as well know that too, might as well understand what he’s getting into. 

They start the journey to wherever it is that they’re going. Only once does anyone ever come into the cabin, and when they do, Silver motions wordlessly for Flint to sit down and shut up. This crewman, Flint realizes, is blind. Silver gives him short orders, to the point, and the man leaves as quickly as he came. 

“Does anyone know I’m here?” Flint asks, shortly after. 

“As far as everyone knows,” Silver says, “You died of rum poisoning, blue in the face and singing.” 

“Singing?” Flint says, swallowing hard at Silver’s tone of voice. It almost scares him.

“Yes.” Silver says, turning to look at him, mouth a thin line. “Do you know how difficult it was to compose something catchy enough to carry the story? After the men who found you spread it, I had them killed. The rumor of that act as a cover-up, as my grief at hearing it, wasn’t going to be enough. I had to write the song too.” 

Flint goes quiet, absorbing this. He’s dead then. He’d felt that a lot in recent times, but not as a relief, not as unburdening of that self that he was carrying around. This is a gift that Silver has given him.

“The things I do for you, Captain.” Silver says at last, turning back to his papers. 

 

The night before they are to land, Silver climbs into bed with him. Flint doesn’t move a muscle, allows Silver manhandle him onto his side and curls up behind him, his forehead coming to rest between Flint’s shoulderblades. He relaxes by degrees, remembering that Silver didn’t touch him when he asked him not too. If Silver needs this now like Flint needed that space then, he will give it gladly. He hopes he understands. Silver pulls the blanket over them and says, “Okay?” 

Flint says nothing, but reaches behind him slightly and squeezes Silver’s thigh. 

Silver sighs deeply, presses closer, and says, “I need you to tell me.” 

It will hurt. It will hurt very badly to tell him and to remember. That’s why Flint does it. That’s why he stares at the wall and lets Silver’s body heat seep into his bones, the best thing he’s felt in years, and says, “I found Thomas where you said he would be. He was ready to forgive me. He was ready to forgive it all. I think he had been waiting for us to meet again, and he said exactly what I knew he would say. He called me James.” 

Flint draws in a ragged breath. Silver is holding him, wrapped around him, quiet, listening. “Don’t you see? I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t earned his forgiveness, he should have scorned me, he should have pitied me, he should have killed me for what happened to her.” 

“He loved you.” Silver says into the darkness. Flint is crying, a mess with it, chest heaving. “He still loved you.” 

“He shouldn’t have.” Flint says back. That’s it. Fate tried to give him a happy ending and he knew it was not for him, knew that the man Thomas looked at him and saw was long gone. He did not trust the sea to take him and decided to drown himself another way. He’s pathetic. 

Silver holds him close long after he’s cried himself to sleep that night. He doesn’t let him go.

 

When they dock Silver makes him take a bath, leaves only for a moment and comes back with his arms full of clothes, a pair of scissors, and a razor. When all's said and done he feels like a new man, which is entirely the point. Silver still makes him wear a hat and a scarf over the lower half of his face, and draws from him a solemn promise not to speak with anyone. 

“You must go straight off the ship to the Spy-glass. It is along the line of the docks, you cannot miss it. Little tavern, tiny really, brass telescope on the sign.” Silver says, holding Flint’s freshly-shaven face between both hands. 

“I’m not going to run.” Flint tells him, and Silver looks sad, so sad and terrified, like his tongue is failing him for the first time and he’s helpless to do anything about it. Flint goes very still for a second, eyes unfocusing, and when he comes back Silver is still looking at him like that. 

“Where did you just go?” Silver asks, and Flint presses forward into his hands and kisses him. He tilts his head and sucks on Silver’s bottom lip and only pulls back when Silver growls into his mouth like he’s furious.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Silver says, still holding him. Flint meets his eyes and feels himself go hot with shame, with the weight of this mistake on top of all the rest, like the entire mountain might tumble over under it. Silver presses in and bites his mouth, sharp, then soothes it with his tongue, putting only enough space between their faces after that to say, “Don’t you dare say goodbye to me like this.” 

“I’m not.” Flint says, gasping with relief, “I’m not, Silver, I swear. I will go to your Spy-glass, I will go to your wife. I will see you there tonight. I swear it.” 

Silver shifted his grasp, one hand still clutching his face but the other sliding around to the back of Flint’s neck and squeezing. He took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Yes.” He said. And it was so.

 

Madi meets him at the door. As soon as he hesitated, eyes jumping from the worn down sign to the red curtains to the cleanly sanded floor, she appeared in the doorway before him and said, “Please come in.” Flint wonders how in the world they haven’t been discovered; despite her plain dress and loose posture, she still sounds like a queen. He’s stepping inside before he even thinks about it.

She places a gentle hand on his forearm and says, in a quiet voice that he can barely hear over the loud conversation of seafaring men that occupied almost every chair in the tavern, “Go upstairs and into the first room on the right. You can wash your face and hands, and I will be up as soon as I am able.” 

Flint meets her eyes and nods, slowly. He doesn’t know where they left off, doesn’t know what John has told her but something in her face is so beautiful and kind it makes him want to close himself off from it. She squeezes his arm and says, the command strengthening him, “Go.” 

It isn’t until he’s already closed the door behind him that Flint realizes this is their room. Silver’s and Madi’s. It must be. He moves as quietly as he can across to the small vanity, cupping water from the shallow bowl that sits on it between his hands and splashing his face and the back of his neck, rubbing his hands together and drying them on his pants for lack of a better option. Flint looks briefly out the window before realizing someone could look up and see him, and backs up so quickly out of panic that he sits down hard on the end of their bed without really meaning to. 

Once he’s there he can’t seem to move, and so Flint twists his hands together in his lap and waits for Madi to come and find him, staring at the dust filtering in through the window, illuminated by the sunlight. 

She knocks before she enters, and Flint is still puzzling out why she would do that when she moves around in front of him and offers him a plate. He takes it, and then holds it in both hands, staring. It looks like the best meal he’s had in months. He looks back up at her and she is looking back.

“You should eat, and rest.” Madi says. Flint nods once, not sure what his voice would sound like if he tried to use it. She puts her hands on her hips and says, “John told me that if you looked like you might run, that I should tie you to our bed.” 

She is smiling at him, inviting him to share the joke, but Flint swallows hard and looks down at the meat and bread and half a potato steaming hot on his plate, the mis-matched fork and knife, and feels his face grow hot. The blush crawls up the back of his neck, his ears, across the bridge of his nose. Madi reaches for him tentatively, tilts his face back up towards her by placing two gentle fingers under his chin. Flint lets her see. If the dreaded pirate captain Flint is dead, then he is free to choose a different man to become. For now though, he hopes that they will keep him. For now he hopes that Silver meant what he said on the ship. He hopes that Madi might understand. 

“Ah.” She says, brushing his hair out of his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. Her hands are warm and a little rough, she works hard but she smells sweet and she is touching him so gently. “Eat, rest. John and I will hold you down tonight, it will be okay.” 

He nods again, clears his throat while she traces his cheekbones and the line of his jaw, soothing. “I’ll wait for you.” Flint says. “For you both.” 

Madi smiles at him again, bright and proud. Excited even. She must be pleased that Silver has returned, must want to touch his face like this, to see him fed and rested. Perhaps Flint is intruding, perhaps he should not be so selfish as to ask for this, perhaps- Madi leans down and kisses his forehead. He breathes and feels his tension fade back down again. “You are welcome here.” She says, and he cannot look at her anymore. She gently strokes from the top of his head to the back of his neck, once, and then quietly leaves the room. The door clicks shut behind her. 

Flint eats, sets his empty plate and silverware down on her vanity, and sees in the mirror a man on the verge of floating away, though not quite as close to that disappearance as recently. He takes off his boots, leaves them there on the floor, crawls into a bed that smells of Silver and of Madi and stares at the ceiling letting his mind drift off and his body be warmed by the sunshine. Just for a moment. Just because she asked him to. 

 

“Are you sure you told me everything?” Flint hears from somewhere above him. He’s so warm, he doesn’t want to open his eyes. 

“I always tell you everything.” Silver is saying, just as close as the first voice.

“You tell me everything you remember to tell me.” Madi chides him, laughing softly. Flint can feel her hand on his chest, radiating heat, holding him down like she promised. “Sometimes you forget important things.” 

“Oh.” Silver says. He sounds shy, soft, a little nervous. He shifts a little on Flint’s left, the bed moving with him. 

“You will tell me right now John Silver or else-” Madi starts, quiet and serious. She’s also teasing, and Flint can tell because her laughter shakes the bed too. 

“No threats in bed! We agreed!” Silver defends himself, and then his hand is on Flint’s shoulder, his fingers idly tracing Flint’s collarbone. He doesn’t remember unbuttoning his shirt, but he must have wanted the sunlight on his skin. It feels good. “We kissed.” Silver says, and Madi hums her approval. “I know you wanted to be there-” Silver starts, but she leans towards him, over Flint, momentarily blocking the sun from hitting his face. He hears them kiss. The sound of it warms his entire body and he knows the flush is visible on his chest because both of them are running their fingers over it, curious. Both of them are laughing.

“Open your eyes, Captain. We’ve been waiting for you.” Silver says. 

Flint swallows hard, and keeps them tightly closed. “I am afraid this is a dream.” 

“If this is a dream,” Madi says, tapping her fingers over where his heart lies under his skin and ribs. “I will kill the man that wakes us.” 

Flint opens his eyes, and they are looking down at him. He wants to kiss them both at once and can’t figure out a way to do it. Silver leans down towards him, but Madi reaches out and tugs him back up by his hair, saying, “You already tasted his mouth, you selfish man.” John is laughing when Madi kisses Flint, laughing helplessly and joyful. 

He wants them to keep him until he knows who he is again, who he wants to be next. Maybe even after that, if they’ll have him. 

“Oh, yes.” Madi says, kissing him once more. He struggles not to close his eyes, it feels so good. “Yes, I think the three of us will get along very well.” 

Silver keeps laughing, kissing her and then Flint in quick succession. Flint wonders how he managed that without knocking his head into either of them. He tilts his face up, asking for it, and Silver kisses him again, much deeper. Madi tugs on Silver’s hair again and he makes a sound into Flint’s mouth that has him squirming. As soon as Silver separates their mouths he collapses onto the bed beside Flint, breathing hard, and Madi takes Flint’s hand from where it has clenched into the bed sheets and shushes the both of them even as she’s clearly pleased by their enthusiasm. 

“We have a tavern to run, husband.” Madi says, and Silver groans from Flint’s left, turning onto his side and pressing up against Flint, arm going across his chest, holding him close. Flint freezes. It reminds him so much of the previous night that he isn’t sure what might be asked of him next, but Silver is just pressing his half-hard cock into Flint’s side and complaining about it. 

“You two are going to be the death of me.” Silver says, earnest. “Truly, I’m going to be so unbalanced by the effect you have had that I will fall down the stairs and then who will Captain the ship? Who will chase the drunks out with the broom, and remember to feed the bird, and buy soft strips of leather for tying this man to our bed?” 

While Flint is hiding his face in both hands, trying not to make a sound, Madi is laughing and saying, “I will, of course!” Then they are all laughing, while Silver admits she is right and he is useless. 

“Not useless.” Madi tells him, reaching across Flint to give Silver a squeeze. He makes a sound like he can’t quite believe she would be that cruel. “But you will have to wait to show your captain the real reason they call you Long John, my love. You will have to wait until there is not a room full of men downstairs waiting for your stories.” 

Silver groans but turns back onto his back and takes deep, calming breaths. Madi plays idly with Flint’s hair and quietly asks him, “What do you want me to call you? When we are together, when we are in town?” 

It isn’t a test but it feels a lot like a turning point, a moment of clarity that pulls him back into his sun-drenched touch-starved body and gives him pause. 

“James.” He says, at last. “Call me James.”


End file.
